Books: Percy Bysshe Shelley

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While translating Pliny and dabbling in chemistry, Shelley was not
wholly neglectful of Etonian studies. He acquired a fluent, if not a
correct, knowledge of both Greek and Latin, and astonished his
contemporaries by the facility with which he produced verses in the
latter language. His powers of memory were extraordinary, and the
rapidity with which he read a book, taking in seven or eight lines at a
glance, and seizing the sense upon the hint of leading words, was no
less astonishing. Impatient speed and indifference to minutiae were
indeed among the cardinal qualities of his intellect. To them we may
trace not only the swiftness of his imaginative flight, but also his
frequent satisfaction with the somewhat less than perfect in artistic
execution.

That Shelley was not wholly friendless or unhappy at Eton may be
gathered from numerous small circumstances. Hogg says that his Oxford
rooms were full of handsome leaving books, and that he was frequently
visited by old Etonian acquaintances. We are also told that he spend the
40 pounds gained by his first novel, "Zastrozzi," on a farewell supper
to eight school-boy friends. A few lines, too, might be quoted from his
own poem, the "Boat on the Serchio," to prove that he did not entertain
a merely disagreeable memory of his school life. (Forman's edition,
volume 4 page 115.) Yet the general experience of Eton must have been
painful; and it is sad to read of this gentle and pure spirit being
goaded by his coarser comrades into fury, or coaxed to curse his father
and the king for their amusement. It may be worth mentioning that he was
called "the Atheist" at Eton; and though Hogg explains this by saying
that "the Atheist" was an official character among the boys, selected
from time to time for his defiance of authority, yet it is not
improbable that Shelley's avowed opinions may even then have won for him
a title which he proudly claimed in after-life. To allude to his boyish
incantations and nocturnal commerce with fiends and phantoms would
scarcely be needful, were it not that they seem to have deeply tinged
his imagination. While describing the growth of his own genius in the
"Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," he makes the following reference to
circumstances which might otherwise be trivial:--

While yet a boy, I sought for ghosts, and sped
Thro' many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin,
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
I call'd on poisonous names with which our youth is fed,
I was not heard, I saw them not--
When, musing deeply on the lot
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing
All vital things that wake to bring
News of birds and blossoming,--
Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!

Among the Eton tutors was one whose name will always be revered by
Shelley's worshippers; for he alone discerned the rare gifts of the
strange and solitary boy, and Shelley loved him. Dr. Lind was an old
man, a physician, and a student of chemistry. Shelley spent long hours
at his house, conversing with him, and receiving such instruction in
philosophy and science as the grey-haired scholar could impart. The
affection which united them must have been of no common strength or
quality; for when Shelley lay ill of a fever at Field Place, and had
conceived the probably ill-founded notion that his father intended to
place him in a mad-house, he managed to convey a message to his friend
at Eton, on the receipt of which Dr. Lind travelled to Horsham, and by
his sympathy and skill restored the sick boy's confidence. It may
incidentally be pointed out that this story, credited as true by Lady
Shelley in her Memorials, shows how early an estrangement had begun
between the poet and his father. We look, moreover, vainly for that
mother's influence which might have been so beneficial to the boy in
whom "love and life were twins, born at one birth." From Dr. Lind
Shelley not only received encouragement to pursue his chemical studies;
but he also acquired the habit of corresponding with persons unknown to
him, whose opinions he might be anxious to discover or dispute. This
habit, as we shall see in the sequel, determined Shelley's fate on two
important occasions of his life. In return for the help extended to him
at Eton, Shelley conferred undying fame on Dr. Lind; the characters of
Zonaras in "Prince Athanase," and of the hermit in "Laon and Cythna,"
are portraits painted by the poet of his boyhood's friend.

The months which elapsed between Eton and Oxford were an important
period in Shelley's life. At this time a boyish liking for his cousin,
Harriet Grove, ripened into real attachment; and though there was
perhaps no formal engagement between them, the parents on both sides
looked with approval on their love. What it concerns us to know about
this early passion, is given in a letter from a brother of Miss Grove.
"Bysshe was at that time (just after leaving Eton) more attached to my
sister Harriet than I can express, and I recollect well the moonlight
walks we four had at Strode and also at St. Irving's; that, I think, was
the name of the place, then the Duke of Norfolk's, at Horsham." For some
time after the date mentioned in this letter, Shelley and Miss Grove
kept up an active correspondence; but the views he expressed on
speculative subjects soon began to alarm her. She consulted her mother
and her father, and the engagement was broken off. The final separation
does not seem to have taken place until the date of Shelley's expulsion
from Oxford; and not the least cruel of the pangs he had to suffer at
that period, was the loss of one to whom he had given his whole heart
unreservedly. The memory of Miss Grove long continued to haunt his
imagination, nor is there much doubt that his first unhappy marriage was
contracted while the wound remained unhealed. The name of Harriet
Westbrook and something in her face reminded him of Harriet Grove; it is
even still uncertain to which Harriet the dedication of Queen Mab is
addressed. (See Medwin, volume 1 page 68.)

In his childhood Shelley scribbled verses with fluency by no means
unusual in the case of forward boys; and we have seen that at Sion House
he greedily devoured the sentimental novels of the day. His favourite
poets at the time of which I am now writing, were Monk Lewis and
Southey; his favourite books in prose were romances by Mrs. Radcliffe
and Godwin. He now began to yearn for fame and publicity. Miss Shelley
speaks of a play written by her brother and her sister Elizabeth, which
was sent to Matthews the comedian, and courteously returned as unfit for
acting. She also mentions a little volume of her own verses, which the
boy had printed with the tell-tale name of "H-ll-n Sh-ll-y" on the
title-page. Medwin gives a long account of a poem on the story of the
Wandering Jew, composed by him in concert with Shelley during the winter
of 1809-1810. They sent the manuscript to Thomas Campbell, who returned
it with the observation that it contained but two good lines:--

It seemed as if an angel's sigh
Had breathed the plaintive symphony.

Undeterred by this adverse criticism, Shelley subsequently offered "The
Wandering Jew" to two publishers, Messrs. Ballantyne and Co. of
Edinburgh, and Mr. Stockdale of Pall Mall; but it remained in MS. at
Edinburgh till 1831, when a portion was printed in "Fraser's Magazine."

Just before leaving Eton he finished a novel of "Zastrozzi", which some
critics trace to its source in "Zofloya the Moor," perused by him at
Sion House. The most astonishing fact about this incoherent medley of
mad sentiment is that it served to furnish forth the 40-pound Eton
supper already spoken of, that it was duly ushered into the world of
letters by Messrs. Wilkie and Robinson on the 5th of June, 1810, and
that it was seriously reviewed. The dates of Shelley's publications now
come fast and frequent. In the late summer of 1810 he introduced himself
to Mr. J.J. Stockdale, the then fashionable publisher of poems and
romances, at his house of business in Pall Mall. With characteristic
impetuosity the young author implored assistance in a difficulty. He had
commissioned a printer in Horsham to strike off the astounding number of
1480 copies of a volume of poems; and he had no money to pay the
printer's bill. Would Stockdale help him out of this dilemma, by taking
up the quires and duly ushering the book into the world? Throughout his
life Shelley exercised a wonderful fascination over the people with whom
he came in contact, and almost always won his way with them as much by
personal charm as by determined and impassioned will. Accordingly on
this occasion Stockdale proved accommodating. The Horsham printer was
somehow satisfied; and on the 17th of September, 1810, the little book
came out with the title of "Original Poetry, by Victor and Cazire." This
volume has disappeared; and much fruitless conjecture has been expended
upon the question of Shelley's collaborator in his juvenile attempt.
Cazire stands for some one; probably it is meant to represent a woman's
name, and that woman may have been either Elizabeth Shelley or Harriet
Grove. The "Original Poetry" had only been launched a week, when
Stockdale discovered on a closer inspection of the book that it
contained some verses well known to the world as the production of M.G.
Lewis. He immediately communicated with Shelley, and the whole edition
was suppressed--not, however, before about one hundred copies had passed
into circulation. To which of the collaborators this daring act of petty
larceny was due, we know not; but we may be sure that Shelley satisfied
Stockdale on the point of piracy, since the publisher saw no reason to
break with him. On the 14th of November in the same year he issued
Shelley's second novel from his press, and entered into negotiations
with him for the publication of more poetry. The new romance was named
"St. Irvyne, or the Rosicrucian." This tale, no less unreadable than
"Zastrozzi," and even more chaotic in its plan, contained a good deal of
poetry, which has been incorporated in the most recent editions of
Shelley's works. A certain interest attaches to it as the first known
link between Shelley and William Godwin, for it was composed under the
influence of the latter's novel, "St. Leon." The title, moreover,
carries us back to those moonlight walks with Harriet Grove alluded to
above. Shelley's earliest attempts in literature have but little value
for the student of poetry, except in so far as they illustrate the
psychology of genius and its wayward growth. Their intrinsic merit is
almost less than nothing, and no one could predict from their perusal
the course which the future poet of "The Cenci" and "Epipsychidion" was
to take. It might indeed be argued that the defects of his great
qualities, the over-ideality, the haste, the incoherence, and the want
of grasp on narrative, are glaringly apparent in these early works. But
while this is true, the qualities themselves are absent. A cautious
critic will only find food in "Zastrozzi" and "St. Irvyne" for wondering
how such flowers and fruits of genius could have lain concealed within a
germ apparently so barren. There is even less of the real Shelley
discernible in these productions, than of the real Byron in the "Hours
of Idleness."

In the Michaelmas Term of 1810 Shelley was matriculated as a Commoner of
University College, Oxford; and very soon after his arrival he made the
acquaintance of a man who was destined to play a prominent part in his
subsequent history, and to bequeath to posterity the most brilliant, if
not in all respects the most trustworthy, record of his marvellous
youth. Thomas Jefferson Hogg was unlike Shelley in temperament and
tastes. His feet were always planted on the earth, while Shelley flew
aloft to heaven with singing robes around him, or the mantel of the
prophet on his shoulders. (He told Trelawny that he had been attracted
to Shelley simply by his "rare talents as a scholar;" and Trelawny has
recorded his opinion that Hogg's portrait of their friend was faithful,
in spite of a total want of sympathy with his poetic genius. This
testimony is extremely valuable.) Hogg had much of the cynic in his
nature; he was a shrewd man of the world, and a caustic humorist.
Positive and practical, he chose the beaten path of life, rose to
eminence as a lawyer, and cherished the Church and State opinions of a
staunch Tory. Yet, though he differed so essentially from the divine
poet, he understood the greatness of Shelley at a glance, and preserved
for us a record of his friend's early days, which is incomparable for
the vividness of its portraiture. The pages which narrate Shelley's
course of life at Oxford have all the charm of a romance. No novel
indeed is half so delightful as that picture, at once affectionate and
satirical, tender and humorous, extravagant and delicately shaded, of
the student life enjoyed together for a few short months by the
inseparable friends. To make extracts from a masterpiece of such
consummate workmanship is almost painful. Future biographers of Shelley,
writing on a scale adequate to the greatness of their subject, will be
content to lay their pens down for a season at this point, and let Hogg
tell the tale in his own wayward but inimitable fashion. I must confine
myself to a few quotations and a barren abstract, referring my readers
to the ever-memorable pages 48--286 of Hogg's first volume, for the life
that cannot be transferred to these.

"At the commencement of Michaelmas term," says this biographer, "that
is, at the end of October, in the year 1810, I happened one day to sit
next to a freshman at dinner; it was his first appearance in hall. His
figure was slight, and his aspect remarkably youthful, even at our
table, where all were very young. He seemed thoughtful and absent. He
ate little, and had no acquaintance with any one." The two young men
began a conversation, which turned upon the respective merits of German
and Italian poetry, a subject they neither of them knew anything about.
After dinner it was continued in Hogg's rooms, where Shelley soon led
the talk to his favourite topic of science. "As I felt, in truth, but a
slight interest in the subject of his conversation, I had leisure to
examine, and I may add, to admire, the appearance of my very
extraordinary guest. It was a sum of many contradictions. His figure was
slight and fragile, and yet his bones and joints were large and strong.
He was tall, but he stooped so much, that he seemed of a low stature.
His clothes were expensive, and made according to the most approved mode
of the day; but they were tumbled, rumpled, unbrushed. His gestures were
abrupt, and sometimes violent, occasionally even awkward, yet more
frequently gentle and graceful. His complexion was delicate and almost
feminine, of the purest red and white; yet he was tanned and freckled by
exposure to the sun, having passed the autumn, as he said, in shooting.
His features, his whole face, and particularly his head, were, in fact,
unusually small; yet the last APPEARED of a remarkable bulk, for his
hair was long and bushy, and in fits of absence, and in the agonies (if
I may use the word) of anxious thought, he often rubbed it fiercely with
his hands, or passed his fingers quickly through his locks
unconsciously, so that it was singularly wild and rough. In times when
it was the mode to imitate stage-coachmen as closely as possible in
costume, and when the hair was invariably cropped, like that of our
soldiers, this eccentricity was very striking. His features were not
symmetrical (the mouth, perhaps, excepted), yet was the effect of the
whole extremely powerful. They breathed an animation, a fire, an
enthusiasm, a vivid and preternatural intelligence, that I never met
with in any other countenance. Nor was the moral expression less
beautiful than the intellectual; for there was a softness, a delicacy, a
gentleness, and especially (though this will surprise many) that air of
profound religious veneration, that characterizes the best works, and
chiefly the frescoes (and into these they infused their whole souls), of
the great masters of Florence and of Rome. I recognized the very
peculiar expression in these wonderful productions long afterwards, and
with a satisfaction mingled with much sorrow, for it was after the
decease of him in whose countenance I had first observed it."

In another place Hogg gives some details which complete the impression
of Shelley's personal appearance, and which are fully corroborated by
Trelawny's recollections of a later date. "There were many striking
contrasts in the character and behaviour of Shelley, and one of the most
remarkable was a mixture, or alternation, of awkwardness with
agility--of the clumsy with the graceful. He would stumble in stepping
across the floor of a drawing room; he would trip himself up on a
smooth-shaven grass-plot, and he would tumble in the most inconceivable
manner in ascending the commodious, facile, and well-carpeted staircase
of an elegant mansion, so as to bruise his nose or his lip on the upper
steps, or to tread upon his hands, and even occasionally to disturb the
composure of a well-bred footman; on the contrary, he would often glide
without collision through a crowded assembly, thread with unerring
dexterity a most intricate path, or securely and rapidly tread the most
arduous and uncertain ways."

This word-portrait corresponds in its main details to the descriptions
furnished by other biographers, who had the privilege of Shelley's
friendship. His eyes were blue, unfathomably dark and lustrous. His hair
was brown; but very early in life it became grey, while his unwrinkled
face retained to the last a look of wonderful youth. It is admitted on
all sides that no adequate picture was ever painted of him. Mulready is
reported to have said that he was too beautiful to paint. And yet,
although so singularly lovely, he owed less of his charm to regularity
of feature or to grace of movement, than to an indescribable personal
fascination. One further detail Hogg pointedly insists upon. Shelley's
voice "was excruciating; it was intolerably shrill, harsh and
discordant." This is strongly stated; but, though the terms are
certainly exaggerated, I believe that we must trust this first
impression made on Shelley's friend. There is a considerable mass of
convergent testimony to the fact that Shelley's voice was high pitched,
and that when he became excited, he raised it to a scream. The epithets
"shrill," "piercing," "penetrating," frequently recur in the
descriptions given of it. At the same time its quality seems to have
been less dissonant than thrilling; there is abundance of evidence to
prove that he could modulate it exquisitely in the reading of poetry,
and its tone proved no obstacle to the persuasive charms of his
eloquence in conversation. Like all finely tempered natures, he vibrated
in harmony with the subjects of his thought. Excitement made his
utterance shrill and sharp. Deep feeling of the sense of beauty lowered
its tone to richness; but the timbre was always acute, in sympathy with
his intense temperament. All was of one piece in Shelley's nature. This
peculiar voice, varying from moment to moment, and affecting different
sensibilities in divers ways, corresponds to the high-strung passion of
his life, his fine-drawn and ethereal fancies, and the clear vibrations
of his palpitating verse. Such a voice, far-reaching, penetrating, and
unearthly, befitted one who lived in rarest ether on the topmost heights
of human thought.

The acquaintance begun that October evening soon ripened into close
friendship. Shelley and Hogg from this time forward spent a large part
of their days and nights together in common studies, walks and
conversations. It was their habit to pass the morning, each in his own
rooms, absorbed in private reading. At one o'clock they met and lunched,
and then started for long rambles in the country. Shelley frequently
carried pistols with him upon these occasions, and would stop to fix his
father's franks upon convenient trees and shoot at them. The practice of
pistol shooting, adopted so early in life, was afterwards one of his
favourite amusements in the company of Byron. Hogg says that in his use
of fire-arms he was extraordinarily careless. "How often have I lamented
that Nature, which so rarely bestows upon the world a creature endowed
with such marvellous talents, ungraciously rendered the gift less
precious by implanting a fatal taste for perilous recreations, and a
thoughtlessness in the pursuit of them, that often caused his existence
from one day to another to seem in itself miraculous." On their return
from these excursions the two friends, neither of whom cared for dining
in the College Hall, drank tea and supped together, Shelley's rooms
being generally chosen as the scene of their symposia.

These rooms are described as a perfect palace of confusion--chaos on
chaos heaped of chemical apparatus, books, electrical machines,
unfinished manuscripts, and furniture worn into holes by acids. It was
perilous to use the poet's drinking-vessels, less perchance a
seven-shilling piece half dissolved in aqua regia should lurk at the
bottom of the bowl. Handsome razors were used to cut the lids of wooden
boxes, and valuable books served to support lamps or crucibles; for in
his vehement precipitation Shelley always laid violent hands on what he
found convenient to the purpose of the moment. Here the friends talked
and read until late in the night. Their chief studies at this time were
in Locke and Hume and the French essayists. Shelley's bias toward
metaphysical speculation was beginning to assert itself. He read the
School Logic with avidity, and practised himself without intermission in
dialectical discussion. Hogg observes, what is confirmed by other
testimony, that in reasoning Shelley never lost sight of the essential
bearings of the topic in dispute, never condescended to personal or
captious arguments, and was Socratically bent on following the dialogue
wherever it might lead, without regard for consequences. Plato was
another of their favourite authors; but Hogg expressly tells us that
they only approached the divine philosopher through the medium of
translations. It was not until a later period that Shelley studied his
dialogues in the original: but the substance of them, seen through Mdme.
Dacier's version, acted powerfully on the poet's sympathetic intellect.
In fact, although at the time he had adopted the conclusions of
materialism, he was at heart all through his life an idealist. Therefore
the mixture of the poet and the sage in Plato fascinated him. The
doctrine of anamnesis, which offers so strange a vista to speculative
reverie, by its suggestion of an earlier existence in which our
knowledge was acquired, took a strong hold upon his imagination; he
would stop in the streets to gaze wistfully at babies, wondering whether
their newly imprisoned souls were not replete with the wisdom stored up
in a previous life.

In the acquisition of knowledge he was then as ever unrelaxing. "No
student ever read more assiduously. He was to be found, book in hand, at
all hours; reading in season and out of season; at table, in bed, and
especially during a walk; not only in the quiet country, and in retired
paths; not only at Oxford, in the public walks, and High Street, but in
the most crowded thoroughfares of London. Nor was he less absorbed by
the volume that was open before him, in Cheapside, in Cranbourne Alley,
or in Bond Street, than in a lonely lane, or a secluded library.
Sometimes a vulgar fellow would attempt to insult or annoy the eccentric
student in passing. Shelley always avoided the malignant interruption by
stepping aside with his vast and quiet agility." And again:--"I never
beheld eyes that devoured the pages more voraciously than his; I am
convinced that two-thirds of the period of the day and night were often
employed in reading. It is no exaggeration to affirm, that out of
twenty-four hours, he frequently read sixteen. At Oxford, his diligence
in this respect was exemplary, but it greatly increased afterwards, and
I sometimes thought that he carried it to a pernicious excess: I am
sure, at least, that I was unable to keep pace with him." With Shelley
study was a passion, and the acquisition of knowledge was the entrance
into a thrice-hallowed sanctuary. "The irreverent many cannot comprehend
the awe--the careless apathetic worldling cannot imagine the
enthusiasm--nor can the tongue that attempts only to speak of things
visible to the bodily eye, express the mighty emotion that inwardly
agitated him, when he approached, for the first time, a volume which he
believed to be replete with the recondite and mystic philosophy of
antiquity: his cheeks glowed, his eyes became bright, his whole frame
trembled, and his entire attention was immediately swallowed up in the
depths of contemplation. The rapid and vigorous conversion of his soul
to intellect can only be compared with the instantaneous ignition and
combustion, which dazzle the sight, when a bundle of dry reeds, or other
light inflammable substance, is thrown upon a fire already rich with
accumulated heat."

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